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Old Jail Museum And Heritage Center

The Carbon County Jail in historic Mauch Chunk is an excellent example of 19th-century prison construction, as well as a reminder of the 19th-century labor-management conflicts in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region. The jail could hold 29 prisoners. In 1875, the jail was crowded with miners, either Irish-born or the sons of Irish immigrants, who were accused of a series of murders on behalf of what the mine owners, railroad men, the prosecutors, anti-labor and anti-Catholic nativists, and the press described as an ominous terrorist conspiracy—the Molly Maguires.